Paul Thurrott at Windows IT Pro has the exclusive:
According to sources at Microsoft, the company plans to ship Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) in early September. More important, perhaps, is that Microsoft still plans to release Vista to manufacturing by the end of October as previously planned, defying rumors that the company would delay Vista yet again.
More by following the link, but he’s predicting RC1 on or after Sept. 7. I guess Microsoft didn’t take to heart the forebodings of some of their beta testers.